DLWAV CH65 [Arc 4]

Very soon, Ao Ruize was delivered to the shore by that giant grass carp.

The key detail was that after it delivered Ao Ruize to the shore, it didn’t leave immediately. Instead, it swam in circles around Ao Ruize, seeming to confirm whether he had truly, completely escaped danger.

The milk dumpling (system) couldn’t help but say sympathetically, “This is too difficult. A majestic little surfing master, yet in order to prevent people from seeing through his cover, he actually has to pretend he doesn’t know how to swim.”

Ao Ruize, who was moreover a dragon born and raised in the water: “…”

He casually stole two top-tier spirit stones from the milk dumpling and stuffed them into the giant grass carp’s mouth.

Because he hadn’t expected that in such an ordinary small world, he could actually encounter an aquatic creature on the verge of developing spiritual intelligence.

—Which also explained why it had jumped out to save him just now regardless of the danger.

After all, there was no aquatic creature that wouldn’t naturally gravitate toward a member of the Dragon Clan.

The giant grass carp clearly knew the goods. The moment those two top-tier spirit stones entered its stomach, its eyes lit up.

It immediately began swimming in tight circles around Ao Ruize’s finger, and then, as if thinking of something, it dove headfirst back into the deep pool.

The assistant director and the others finally snapped out of it. They hurriedly suppressed the stiffness on their faces and walked over: “Teacher Xia, are you alright?”

And right at this moment, ripples suddenly appeared on the surface of the water in the distance again.

The giant grass carp had actually returned.

Under close observation, they could clearly see the bowl-sized scales on the giant grass carp’s body, as well as the freshwater mussel—the size of two adult palms—that it nudged right up to Ao Ruize’s side.

Ao Ruize: “For me?”

The giant grass carp genuinely nodded its head.

The comments in the live broadcast room instantly began rolling like a snowball.

【Holy shit, this chopped-pepper fish head has really become a demon! Not only does it know how to save people, but it also knows how to give them gifts.】
【It really has become a demon. Take a guess at how many rings are on the scales of that steamed fish head—over eighty rings. That means it’s at least forty years old this year, but you should know that a grass carp’s lifespan is at most ten years.】

Ao Ruize picked up the freshwater mussel: “Thank you.”

Only then did the giant grass carp reluctantly leave.

Actually, it completely didn’t want to leave. It was just that too many strangers had crowded around, and it was genuinely terrified from the bottom of its heart.

【Don’t go, braised fish head, let’s be friends, slurp.】

But very quickly, the giant grass carp’s figure disappeared into the deep pool.

Off to the side, Xia Lewen also thoroughly snapped back to reality.

He couldn’t help but clench both his fists tightly.

Because he hadn’t expected that such a perfect opportunity to establish a persona and attract fans would actually be ruined by a stupid fish.

But saying anything now was too late.

Xia Lewen immediately feigned relief and said, “Ruize, it’s so great that you’re okay.”

Hearing this, Ao Ruize turned his head directly to look at him.

Meeting those pitch-black eyes of Ao Ruize’s—which seemed as if they could see right through people’s hearts—for no reason at all, Xia Lewen’s breathing suddenly stalled for a few seconds: “W-what’s wrong?”

Ao Ruize suddenly smiled. He said, “Just wanted to say thank you.”

“Thanks to you, if it hadn’t been for you dawdling and slowly taking off your clothes and shoes, I really might not have had the chance to experience being rescued by a giant fish.”

…

This was Qian City, one of the five major cities in Hua Country.

The original owner of this body, Xia Ruize, just like the Xia Lewen standing before him, was the stepson of the Xia family, a first-tier wealthy family in Qian City.

To be more detailed, not long after their father passed away, their mother—who was born a commoner—took them with her and married into the Xia family, becoming the wife of the Xia family patriarch.

Rumor had it that the reason the Xia family patriarch married their mother was that she had once saved his life.

Most importantly, because the Xia family patriarch was infertile, he had no sons or daughters of his own.

One could imagine the immense amount of attention the original owner and Xia Lewen suddenly received after leaping to become the stepsons of the Xia family patriarch in one fell swoop.

The key issue was that although the Xia family patriarch had no biological children, he did have a whole massive bunch of nephews and nieces from his siblings.

At the time, Xia Ruize was only fourteen years old; naturally, he didn’t understand what a situation like this meant.

But Xia Lewen, who was already seventeen at the time and had been praised for being clever and bright since childhood, naturally couldn’t possibly not know what it meant.

And to make matters worse, he directly ran over to Xia Ruize and “encouraged” the original owner to study hard so that he could inherit the Xia family patriarch’s legacy in the future and repay his grace for raising them.

And in his descriptions, all those people from the Xia family’s side branches were wicked people who coveted the Xia family’s assets and were practically praying for the patriarch to die early.

And so, just like that, Xia Ruize embarked on a path of declaring his sovereignty and battling wits and courage with the Xia family’s side branches. This included fawning over the Xia family patriarch at public banquets, and whenever he received “tips” from Xia Lewen saying that someone from a side branch was bullying their classmates, stepping forward to teach those side branch members a lesson… The key problem being that sometimes, the side branch member was actually the one being bullied…

By the time Xia Ruize realized what was happening, he had already become someone the entire Xia family wanted to beat up on sight, and he himself had been branded by Qian City’s upper-class society as wildly ambitious but incredibly stupid.

Meanwhile, at some unknown point, Xia Lewen had seamlessly integrated with those side branch members and had even become their unquestioned leader.

Xia Ruize was naturally furious. He could admit he was stupid, but he absolutely could not tolerate Xia Lewen using him as a stepping stone to climb up. He wanted revenge against Xia Lewen.

So the moment he heard Xia Lewen was preparing to enter the entertainment industry, he followed him in without a second thought.

What no one expected was that he actually had quite a bit of talent in this area.

Coupled with his handsome looks and good luck, right after entering the industry, he consecutively acted in several movies and TV shows that absolutely exploded in popularity upon release. Then, in the short span of less than a year and a half, he leaped to become a third-tier star, gathering millions of fans.

Barring any accidents, even if he couldn’t inherit the Xia family in the future, he could rely on this path as a star to live a carefree life. But unfortunately, while he had almost thrown the matter of taking revenge on Xia Lewen to the back of his mind, Xia Lewen was still eyeing him like a tiger watching its prey.

And so, as guests, they joined this variety show named The Village Revitalization Project, one after the other.

—As the name suggested, the show’s explicit purpose was to use the influence and traffic of celebrities to discover the shining points of impoverished mountain villages during live broadcasts, and help those villages find a path to shake off poverty and become wealthy.

But how could Xia Ruize possibly be a match for Xia Lewen?

Because the filming location for this episode of the show was in a rather remote mountain village, Xia Ruize had to ride in a car for a whole day and night just to get here. Because he suffered from motion sickness, he hadn’t eaten anything the whole way.

He never expected that Xia Lewen would actually prepare a late-night snack for him in advance.

But how could Xia Ruize possibly eat something Xia Lewen prepared? So he subsequently threw that late-night snack to a passing stray dog.

What he didn’t know, however, was that right after he joined the show, the production team suddenly changed the broadcasting format, switching from pre-recorded to live broadcasting.

Which meant that everything he did was seen by the millions of viewers in the live broadcast room.

Most importantly, that late-night snack wasn’t prepared by Xia Lewen at all. It was made by the village locals, who, upon hearing that another big star had come to help them, took out the cured ducks and chickens they had been saving for the Lunar New Year.

The viewers in the live broadcast room exploded on the spot.

They felt Xia Ruize had done such a thing because he looked down on the countryside, thought the food cooked by rural people was dirty, and also looked down on Xia Lewen, whose fame was far inferior to his own.

Coupled with the manipulation of people with ulterior motives, very quickly, the original owner was branded with the labels of “acting like a big shot” and “wasting food.”

Left with no other choice, Xia Ruize was forced to admit that he and Xia Lewen were biological brothers, and he blamed his previous behavior on the fact that he and Xia Lewen had just had an argument; he was in a fit of anger, which was why he did something so irrational.

After that, the production team had originally promised the guests that when they were in their rooms, they wouldn’t turn on the live broadcast cameras in their rooms without their permission. But on the morning of the third day, while Xia Lewen was being chased and bitten by a dog, the scene of Xia Ruize standing on his room’s balcony gloating over his misfortune was broadcasted live.

…

Because of all this, in the short span of just one week, Xia Ruize had directly devolved into an existence everyone wanted to beat up. His follower count dropped straight from seven digits to six digits, leaving only a few die-hard fans still brainlessly holding on.

In contrast, Xia Lewen—relying on his identity as Xia Ruize’s older brother, and the fact that this time he disregarded past grievances to save Xia Ruize—instantly gained millions of fans, including the batch of fans who had unfollowed Xia Ruize.

Xia Ruize, of course, refused to give up and continued to jump around causing trouble. As a result, his actions in the Xia family over the years were suddenly exposed, and “school bullying” was instantly added to his list of crimes. The Xia family patriarch subsequently issued a public apology, stating that he had failed in his duty to teach his son, and declared that he would absolutely never leave the company to a piece of scum like Xia Ruize.

Xia Ruize became a complete joke.

Naturally unwilling to accept this, he went straight to the extreme. He attempted to steal the Xia Corporation’s trade secrets and sell them to their competitors, but was caught red-handed by the Xia family patriarch.

And so, Xia Ruize was sent to prison, and ten years later, just as he was about to be released, he died of illness inside.

And the reason Xia Ruize had lost his footing and fallen into the deep pool just now was because, half an hour ago, while the production team was publicly evaluating the plans submitted by each guest to help the villagers get rich, they discovered that the plan he submitted had a 70% overlap with Xia Lewen’s plan, yet was still not as perfect as Xia Lewen’s.

Coincidentally, just three days ago, Xia Lewen’s plan had gone missing once. Although this wasn’t broadcasted, everyone in the production team knew about it.

Although in front of the cameras, the production team and the other guests didn’t say anything explicitly, only stating that Xia Ruize and Xia Lewen had “great minds think alike,” the moment Xia Ruize walked away, they immediately started mocking him both openly and secretly. They firmly believed that Xia Ruize had plagiarized Xia Lewen’s plan. Their reasoning was: how could Xia Ruize possibly come up with a plan as perfect as the one Xia Lewen produced?

After all, Xia Ruize was just a student who hadn’t even managed to test into an undergraduate university, ultimately only attending a third-rate junior college.

Xia Ruize just had a small brain capacity, it wasn’t like he had no brain at all. How could he not realize that something was wrong with the entire production team from top to bottom?

And right at this time, his manager rushed back from abroad. In his hurry to go meet his manager, he accidentally tripped and fell into this pool while walking past it.

…

And on the other side, Xia Lewen’s expression finally froze.

【???】
【What the hell does Xia Ruize mean by that?】
【He’s actually blaming Xia Lewen now?】
【Where does he get the thick skin to say that?】

The massive crowd of netizens who had just been forwarding the news of Ao Ruize being saved by a two-meter-long grass carp, pushing the event straight onto the hot search trends, instantly exploded.

But Xia Ruize’s die-hard fans argued back: 【Is what Xia Ruize saying not the truth?】

At this, even the casual passersby couldn’t stand it anymore.

【I used to not believe that existences like brain-dead fans, who test the limits of our IQ, actually existed in this world. Now I believe it.】
【What do you call this? Fans take after their idol?】
【Before, when Best Actor Liu and the others said that since Xia Ruize is just a junior college student, there’s no way he could make such a perfect plan, so he definitely must have copied Xia Lewen’s plan—I actually thought they were going a bit too far, wrongly accusing Xia Ruize without evidence. But now I believe their guess was right.】

At this moment, however, Ao Ruize turned to look at the assistant director and the others standing nearby. He said, “Setting that aside for now—could you tell me why you didn’t save me just now?”

The cameraman’s expression stiffened.

The assistant director, however, reacted immediately: “That’s because we don’t know how to swim.”

Ao Ruize lifted his chin and pointed to a spot not far from their feet.

The cameraman subconsciously looked over while carrying his camera.

There was a pile of bamboo poles right there.

At this, it was impossible for the assistant director’s face not to change color.

The barrage of comments in the live broadcast room also experienced a brief pause.

【What does Xia Ruize mean by this?】
【Oh right, it doesn’t matter if they don’t know how to swim. The production team could have totally used the bamboo poles to rescue Xia Ruize then, since the place where he fell into the water wasn’t that far from the shore.】

The assistant director hurriedly said, “The situation was too urgent at the time, we didn’t notice those bamboo poles.”

But the moment he finished speaking, he knew he had said the wrong thing.

And the comments section had already exploded.

【To be perfectly honest—so in such an urgent situation, you didn’t notice those bamboo poles, but you still had the mood to keep filming?】
【Holy shit, don’t tell me the production team never intended to save Xia Ruize from the very beginning?】
【Let’s be a bit bolder: the production team deliberately didn’t save Xia Ruize! As for their goal—once Xia Lewen saved Xia Ruize, wouldn’t they have a ready-made trending topic and massive traffic?】
【Also, a production team this large actually didn’t even equip themselves with basic lifeguards?】

And right at this moment, Ao Ruize had already taken out his phone. Upon discovering that the phone still worked, he directly called the General Administration of Broadcasting to report The Village Revitalization Project production team for failing to equip emergency rescue gear and medical personnel in accordance with laws and regulations, thereby failing to ensure the personal safety of their artists.

Hearing this, the millions of viewers in the live broadcast room: 【…】

【Just Baidu’d it. According to the provisions of Order No. 11 from the General Administration of Broadcasting, if a production team fails to equip emergency rescue gear and medical personnel according to regulations, they will be suspended from broadcasting for three months and face a fine of between 500,000 and 2 million yuan, and they cannot resume broadcasting until rectifications are complete.】

As the assistant director of the production team, how could he possibly not know this regulation? So how could his face not directly crack open?

Hadn’t Xia Ruize always chosen to swallow his anger and suffer in silence before?

Had he forgotten that the Xia family was the biggest investor in The Village Revitalization Project?

How dare he damage the production team’s interests?!

Support me on Ko-fi